Perhaps the most elusive of Britten's various musical engagements with Russia is his relationship with the music of Sergei Prokofiev. There are certainly many general and specific similarities between the two composers: a powerful sense of melodic line and understanding of instrumental sonority; a significant number of imaginative works for children; an abiding interest in writing for the stage, both opera and ballet; high-profile performance activity from formative years, both as pianist and conductor. Both composers had important creative collaborations with Rostropovich and Richter (though Britten did not write Richter anything as substantial as Prokofiev did with his Ninth Sonata); both received a piano commission from Paul Wittgenstein, the Austrian pianist who had lost his right arm in the First World War; and both produced contrasting musical responses to the Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son. One can also make a plausible comparison between Britten's Simple Symphony (1934) and Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, in that both works represent a young composer's witty engagement with the eighteenth-century symphony, though in Britten's case the work is arguably (and characteristically) more akin to suite form. Nevertheless, these appear to be largely coincidental affinities between two highly distinctive creative personalities. For example, Britten seems to have been indifferent to Ralph Hawkes's suggestion in 1941 that he produce a work in the vein of Peter and the Wolf, even though he had already shown an interest in writing for children in his Friday Afternoons of six years earlier. While some parallels may be drawn between the Prokofiev work and Britten's subsequent Let's Make An Opera (1949), in that both have a didactic purpose which is conveyed through a story intended for children, there is no evidence to suggest that this important aspect of Britten's output developed under Prokofiev's influence, in spite of a striking similarity between the exhilarating conclusions of Overture russe (1937) and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (1945).

Assessing the relationship between the two composers’ music is made difficult by both chronology and circumstances.